18 Green and LeBihan state that new criticism rejects the claims of the author
and focuses on ‘the words on the page’. The ‘meaning’ of a text is to be found in
the arrangement of the words of the text and not in other factors such as the reader’s psychology, the author’s intention or the historical context 2001: 186.
Furthermore, Selden, Widdowson, and Brooker give their opinion about new criticism. They explain that issue as follows:
But whatever the socio-cultural explanations for its provenance, New Criticism is clearly characterized in premise and practice: it is not
concerned with context – historical, biographical, intellectual and so on; it
is not interested in the ‘fallacies’ of ‘intention’ or ‘affect’; it is concerned solely with the ‘text in itself’, with its language and organization; it does
not seek a text’s ‘meaning’, but how it ‘speaks itself’ 2005: 19. The researcher chooses the new criticism approach because messages,
characters and characterization are parts of the intrinsic elements. The researcher does not deal with extrinsic elements such as the social-historical backgrounds of
the literary work or the life of the author.
C. Method of the Study
There were many steps in analyzing this novel. In order to complete the analysis, the researcher used access from the internet and the library. There were
two kinds of resources used in this study, the primary source and the secondary source.
The primary source of this study was the novel God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, or Pearls Before Swine
by Kurt Vonnegut. Meanwhile, the secondary source of this study was obtained from books and the internet related to the theory
of character, theory of characterization, theory of humanity, theory of messages,
19 and theory of formalism. For example, Introduction to Literature, Criticism, and
Theory by Bennett and Royle, Critical Theory and Practice: A Coursebook by
Green and LeBihan, A Glossary of Literary Terms by Abrams, Aspects of the Novel
by Forster, Understanding Unseen by Murphy, New World of Literature by Beaty and Hunter,
The Value of Humanity in Kant’s Moral Theory by Dean, and etc.
Furthermore, this study also provided the data from the internet in order to enrich the knowledge in analyzing the novel. The researcher searched for the data
by browsing in the internet. There were many of the data that can be found in some websites in order to support this study.
There were some steps that the researcher had done in order to complete this study. The first step, the researcher read the novel many times to get more
feel about the novel and easily understand the plot since this study applied the close reading. The researcher observed the characters of the novel since this study
dealt with characters. The researcher found the main character of the novel, Eliot Rosewater.
The second step, the researcher took a note from each chapter to keep the important information and obtained a clear description of the characteristics of
Eliot Rosewater. It was done because the researcher wanted to reveal the moral messages by Eliot
’s view on humanity. The researcher needed to understand Eliot’s view on humanity from his act, attitude, or manner.
The final step after knowing the characteristics of Eliot Rosewater and analyzing how he viewed humanity, the researcher drew a few moral messages
20 revealed by Eliot Rosewater. Then, the researcher wrote an analysis to answer the
problem formulation in the previous chapter. In analyzing the particular problem formulation, the researcher used some books and the data from the internet to
support the analysis. Finally, the researcher drew some conclusion. In drawing conclusion, the
researcher concluded from all analyses, starting with the description of the main character in the novel, how the main character views humanity, and what
messages are revealed from the analysis in problem formulation number one and two.
